Verstappen URGED to ditch Red Bull for BIG F1 rival to get on Hamilton's level

Max Verstappen is on course to win his third title with Red Bull in as many seasons

Matthew Hobkinson Lead Editor

F1 Editor & Journalist

Sunday 11 June 2023 07:57 Updated: 12:16

Max Verstappen has been urged to leave Red Bull and join Ferrari in order to prove that he can win a world championship in a "substandard car", something that Lewis Hamilton has managed to do.

This is the opinion of British racing driver Richard Bradley, who believes that Verstappen will move to Ferrari in the next few seasons.

Bradley, a former 24 Hours of Le Mans LMP2 winner back in 2015, thinks that Verstappen needs to make the move in order to be classified as a "true great" of the sport.

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“I think that Max is going to end up at Ferrari in a couple of years,” he told On Track GP.

“It wouldn’t surprise me, I think especially if he keeps on winning titles and he starts to get complacent, and people start saying ‘oh, is he the greatest of all time?’ Max is the sort of guy that goes ‘okay, well I’ll do what Schumacher did: I’ll take Ferrari from not being in the position to win, to make them world champions’.

“The reason I think this is because Max is on the path to greatness, we can all see that, he’s on a meteoric rise, he’s dominant at the minute, he’s had two corld championships in the Red Bull, but we’ve never actually seen him do what defines the true greats.

Max Verstappen has been urged to follow Michael Schumacher's footsteps if he is to become a "true great" of the sport

“And when I say that, we look at [Michael] Schumacher, we look at [Ayrton] Senna, [Lewis] Hamilton, and the one thing that defines all of these guys is that they were able to win in a substandard car and take a manufacturer to a position where they weren’t winning at the time, but then they’re able to bring them back there.

'Max will want to emulate Schumacher'

“Schumacher doing it with Ferrari, we had Senna when he was at Lotus, we had Hamilton at McLaren after the the new rules came in in 2009 and then of course with Mercedes.

“Whilst Max is doing exactly what he needs to do in a very, very good team and car, I think he’s going to want to prove himself because Max, there’s no secret, he’s quite a proud person to say the least. And he’s going to want to show that he is one of the true all-time greats. I can see him wanting to bring Ferrari back to the glory that they had with Schumacher, in the next few years.

“How this might look, I don’t know. When this might happen, we’re not sure. He’s still young and he’s still got a bit of time, but I’d be quite confident that maybe after the next five years, if he’s got to the level of five or so championships, which I think is very real, especially if the rules don’t change until 2026, I think it’s something to keep an eye on.”